


And Another Thing

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Humor, Multi, silly tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cara and Kahlan accidentally get married, Dahlia is a corsair <i>not</i> a pirate, and the less said about the bodyswap spell the better</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Another Thing

Cara actually finds their first week in Aydindril very relaxing; after spending the better part of a year walking past every tree in the Midlands, twice, the break is welcome. By the second week she is starting to feel a little fidgety, and by the third week she finds herself tagging along to the woods with Richard and Renn. 

If nothing else, Richard's attempts to teach the young Listener to hunt are hilarious.

*

Cara's leathers and gloves cover most of the scratches, but Kahlan's eyes linger on the one that runs the length of her cheek when Cara joins her and Zedd for breakfast. 

"Did you have fun with Richard and Renn yesterday?" 

"It was fine. There was a magical beast, but we defeated it."

"A chicken, wasn't it?" says Kahlan, a smile spreading across her face. Zedd chokes on a mouthful of bacon.

"An  _evil_  chicken," Cara clarifies, and takes some small comfort from the fact that Richard probably hasn't joined them because he's still removing feathers from somewhere unspeakable. 

*

The thing is, Cara had assumed that she and Richard would only be staying in Aydindril for as long as it took to get Kahlan comfortably installed as Mother Confessor, then they'd travel to the People's Palace, unite D'Hara and smite their enemies into dust.

After several months of this noticeably not happening, Cara decides to bring the subject up with Richard. 

"What do you mean you're not going?"

"I mean," says Richard with that infinite patience that Cara has always found ever so slightly irksome, "that I'm not going to the People's Palace. I think the last thing that D'Hara needs is another Lord Rahl, and anyway, between the war and banelings I can be of more use here helping with the reconstruction efforts--"

Richard doubtless has more reasons for his decision not to return to D'Hara, but Cara has stopped listening and is wondering if Kahlan has any enemies that Cara could smite?

*

Kahlan does. 

The assassin turns out to be the brother of a man confessed to Kahlan. And Cara obviously isn't the only one who's been lulled into a false sense of security by the slower pace of life in Aydindril because he gets as far as the throne before being felled by the dagger that Kahlan - thank the Spirits - still keeps in her boot. 

Cara thinks it's glorious, but she can see how stabbing the man in the bowels and watching him bleed to death at her feet is maybe not part of the image Kahlan in striving to convey to her people. 

*

Kahlan takes the assassination attempt to heart. Cara leaves Richard to console her, the only comforting thing Cara can think of to say is that a knife to the belly is a far kinder fate than the man would have met with if Cara had got to him first. 

*

And that's how Cara comes to be Kahlan's personal bodyguard. It's just as well really, because the rest of Kahlan's guards are demonstrably useless.

Kahlan is delighted, she keeps talking about how having the Mother Confessor guarded by a Mord'Sith will demonstrate for the people how the Midlands are going to be different under her and Richard. Cara thinks that it's partly that and partly that Kahlan's been desperate to find some useful employment for both her and Richard before there's a repeat of the evil chicken incident. 

*

Sometimes, just occasionally, Cara thinks that Kahlan misses their travels as much as she and Richard do, because when bandits start attacking villages in the north, while Richard's away helping to rebuild a dam in the west, Kahlan insists on riding out to deal with them herself.

Cara argues that this is bad idea. She doesn't bother repeating herself when they get snowed in at the northern passes, she's sure Kahlan remembers that Cara told her this would happen. 

Like most of their party, Kahlan is wearing a heavy fur lined cloak over her clothes. Cara isn't, having claimed that Morth'Sith leathers were sufficient protection from the cold. She's not saying that she was wrong, it's just that she can't feel her extremities. 

"Come here," says Kahlan.

"What?"

"Come over here and we can share the cloak."

"I'm fine."

"Cara, you're turning blue and rattling, come over here."

Cara goes over there and lets Kahlan wrap the fur cloak around both of them. 

When she wakes up Cara is - and this is not a word she uses lightly - snuggled up against Kahlan. Her leg is across Kahlan's thighs, her arm over Kahlan's stomach and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some of the Confessor's hair has somehow gotten into her mouth. She looks up and meets Kahlan's smiling eyes and says, "We're never going to speak of this again."

*

They survive the cold, the mountains, and the bandits and return to Aydindril where a rogue wizard locks Cara and Dennee in a broom closet until they deal with their feelings about each other. 

By this point Dennee is pregnant by a D'Haran she's confessed, and Cara is almost sure she's evolved as a person to the point where she wouldn't hit a pregnant woman, she's almost sure.

But they do somehow manage to get out of the closet without violence and Cara suspects that it wasn't a rogue wizard after all, but Zedd acting on Kahlan's orders. 

Still, seeing Cara and her sister, if not getting along, then at least not visibly at each other's throats seems to make Kahlan happy.

*

And then there's the time they accidentally get married.

Cara blames Richard. If Richard were a proper Lord Rahl he would have conquered the Midlands by now and there wouldn't be any tiny independent kingdoms with maddeningly obscure wedding ceremonies, or ones where Kahlan's magic doesn't work. 

And it's certainly proof of an unfair world that the kingdoms where Kahlan's confessor magic doesn't work and the kingdoms that want to marry her to Cara are never the same kingdom. 

The ceremony itself involved drinking wine from the same goblet and saying a few words about how much they mean to each other. Cara doesn't think that either she or Kahlan can be blamed for not recognising it as a wedding ceremony, Confessors and Mord'Sith not really knowing much about matrimony as a rule.

The bit where they had to kiss might have been a bit of a hint, though. Kahlan's a good kisser, Richard's a lucky man.

Although, if Richard had just married Kahlan back in Aydindril like a normal person she wouldn't have been free to accidentally marry Cara. So it's still mostly Richard's fault. 

The upshot of it all is that this particular kingdom's wedding ceremony is strictly temporary - only twenty-four hours - so Cara and Kahlan get to relax in the newlyweds chamber for an evening. 

It's not like Cara and Kahlan have never shared a bed before, more than once they've shared a room at an inn when they've been short of coin, not to mention the never to be spoken of huddling in icy caves. But nothing like this, it's so... lacy.

"Why haven't you married Richard yet?" Cara asks. 

Kahlan looks away. "Oh, you know. It's just-- there's so much to do." She changes the subject. "What about you, have you ever thought about getting married?"

Cara laughs. "To who would you suggest?"

"Well, there's that woman you've been seeing a lot of, the pirate queen. Her name's--?"

"Dahlia. And she's not a pirate, she's a corsair."

*

How Cara met Dahlia:

Dennee was kidnapped. She was almost due and these days newborn confessors were rare as dragon eggs and twice as valuable. By the time Cara and Kahlan reached the coast her captors had already put to sea and they were forced to commandeer a ship - Dahlia's ship.

Dahlia, in her salt stained leathers and messy braid, would have made a magnificent Mord'Sith. 

But all of Cara's seduction plans go out the window as soon as the ship leaves the dock and she gets sick as a dog. Kahlan would never say that she finds it hilarious, but she finds it hilarious. 

When they catch up with Dennee's ship Cara pulls herself together long enough to play her part in rescuing the other Confessor. And seeing Cara greensick to her stomach seems to do more for her and Dennee's relationship than any amount of being trapped in confined spaces together.

Dahlia finds her again in a tavern at the port and says, "You look better on land."

"So do you," says Cara with a smirk and a swagger, and doesn't mention that's because on land everything isn't ever so slightly tinged with green. 

*

The less said about the bodyswap spell the better.

Cara doesn't enjoy wearing Kahlan's body, she doesn't even enjoy wearing Kahlan's dress, the sleeves of her Confessor's dress are  _ridiculous._

She might have enjoyed it more but Dahlia was away at sea the whole time. And given that after they got switched back Richard couldn't look at her without turning bright red and stuttering Cara doesn't imagine that Kahlan exercised similar amounts of restraint. 

*

Then some distant cousin of Richard's decides to declare himself Lord Rahl and attack the Midlands, and Richard has to go back to claim his rights as the true Lord Rahl. 

Cara should go with him, she knows, but she also knows that if she leaves Aydindril something ridiculous will happen to Kahlan, and well, they are technically married these days.


End file.
